Captive Hearts

Chapter 16

I spend the whole day in my room not daring to leave, in fear of being beaten again or having Julius decide to actually send me to execution.

It takes me hours just to rise from my bed to begin getting ready for the fight tonight. Amari having to help me with every move I make due to the amount of pain I was in around my ribcage. Breathing in general has also been very hard.

Amari readjusts the compression wrap around my torso, I stand in the mirror perplexed at the woman I see in front of me. I don't know who that girl is anymore but that's definitely not me. The bruises on my legs from crashing to the floor; and the purple and black bruise around my ribcage. The bags under my eyes have grown darker as the lack of life in my eyes has begun to fade away.

Amari carefully dresses me in a long satin gown that'll hide the bruises on my body. She tries to bring some life back into my face with makeup. Focusing heavy on my under eye bags, and adding some blush to my sunken cheeks.

"Things are not going to go well today" Amari says while brushing out my hair, looking at me through the mirror at my vanity.

"What do you mean?" I ask her out of curiosity.

"I just have a bad feeling" Amari continues while finishing off my final touches with some jewelry. "Just... remember who you are"

But I don't feel like I even know who I am anymore. A knock on the door gathers mine and Amari's attention. She goes to open the door giving me one last soft sympathy smile. I take my last few seconds to take a deep breath.

From the mirror I can see Julius enter into the room, in his best suit he owns. His black suit sits against him tailored perfect to his old man body. He looks to chipper this morning, like he didn't completely wreck me yesterday.

"Ready, Malia?" He asks twirling his keys around his finger. Although he has his fake happy demeanor on, I can see on the inside he's still angry at me.

I try my best to act natural as I stand from my vanity to walk outside to the car but it's hard to act normal with so much pain. As I stand up as natural as possible I notice dizziness taking over me as well, from not eating in a few days.

The ride to the arena was absolutely gruesome, the constant bumps in the cobblestone road sending shooting pain through my ribcage. I tried to keep quiet and mask my pain but I whimpered a few times causing Julius to look over at me and sigh in annoyance.

Julius leads the way up the stairs of the arena for us and I follow behind as quickly as I can with the pain of every step.

"I rented a box for us today! Since it's such a special occasion!" Julius says leading me quickly over to his box that he rented out.

While following him I walk past Tatiana who stares at me questioning me. I ignore her. I haven't figured out what the right thing to say to Tatiana is yet so for now I think it's best we don't talk. I don't care that she's alien. I care that she betrayed me.

We enter into the rented box and I quickly go over to the food table and down a few strawberries. I can hear Julius talking to others that entered the box. Probably some of his old people friends, but the food has my full attention. 

"Malia" I hear my name and I hand grab my shoulder. I shove the last strawberry into my mouth and turn around to see who grabbed my shoulder.

"Stop making a fool of me" Julius whispers into my ear and I quickly swallow the strawberry that was in my mouth.

"Sorry" I say shyly.

Julius pulls me over to his friends and I meet everyone, having to act graceful and in love. Julius places his arm around my back and continually presses his fingers into my ribcage to keep control of me.